"Rusty" the chess player from "Major Crimes"

I'm taking a break from studying "The Wisest Things Ever Said about Chess" - (position 190 and I'm semi regretting deciding to put the positions into a DB, but more on that later) - but I thought I'd take a break to talk about something that I noticed in some recent media

My wife and I were fans of "The Closer" on TNT and are now fans of "Major Crimes" - One of the characters is a teenager (played by Graham Patrick Martin) who is being held in protective supervision by the Captain and squad thru most of the season as a witness to an upcoming murder trial.  He's been getting death threats, so he can't go anywhere now without a police detail

What's interesting is that the character is being fleshed out more and more as a chess player - he was a homeless kid who was doing some unsavory things to survive, but now he's taken up his first love, and scenes have showed him playing online, next to a set up board, and his insistance that if he has to see a therapist, that the therapist has to be a chess player because that's the only kind of guy who will understand him - (the show has been skirting around his sexuality, and this may have just been a tease/cliffhanger to keep you on the edge longer)

I haven't gotten thru all the episodes yet - but I'm curious to see if they attempt to pin some type of behavior on him as or due to his being a chess player.  In the show it has him shaking his security detail to go play chess in the park.  He states not being able to play with a live person is maddening, and when offered a game by a young officer, he promptly beats the heck out of him.

What's interesting is they seem to have captured the obsessiveness of some of us pretty well - how many folks do I know from the Minnesota Chess Castle who have pretty much ignored relationships, jobs, or a steady life to pursue Caissa - how many more try in these areas, but only with other chess players?  It can be a single minded obsession

But I am fortunate, for although I am mostly isolated and cut off from live chess, I'm never far from a dozen good books and the ICC or Chess.com - we live in an age of miracle and wonder, and it's good we have these things or else I'd be bumming - or doing something else probably more productive :)  Although I love the beauty of a live board, I'm probably just as well off on the PC, looking at a 9 inch square instead of a 24 inch board.

Anyways, it was just something to write about while I give my brain a break :)

RB